Elaine Katz

Dr Elaine Katz, long serving member of the Editorial Board of Jewish Affairs, author, academic, fine researcher, scholar and a close friend and colleague passed away after a short illness on 21 February 2017. Elaine was a South African historian of distinction, possessing a fine mind, sharp sense of humour and dry wit. She had a great capacity for friendship, empathy and caring for her many friends and family.

Elaine was a world authority on the history of the South African mining industry, early trade unionism, medical history and the history of Johannesburg. Her research was deep, acute in its analysis and firmly evidenced-based. She wrote with meticulous precision and her writing style was always readable. She will be remembered for her two masterful works of South African historical scholarship, which were based respectively on her M.A., earned in 1974 at the University of the Witwatersrand and on her Doctoral dissertation for which she was awarded her PhD by Wits in 1990.

Elaine’s great strength was as a researcher. Her first impressive study was A Trade Union Aristocracy: the Transvaal White Working Class and the General Strike of 1913 (1976), published by the African Studies Institute at Wits. In 1994, Wits University Press published her authoritative study, White Death: Silicosis on the Witwatersrand Gold Mines 1886-1918. These two works established Elaine’s reputation as a leading historian of the South African gold mining industry. She gathered international accolades and her reputation was enhanced by her journal publications and presentations to a range of international conferences on mining history.

In 1995, Elaine achieved the by no means minor distinction in academic circles of publishing a pioneering article in one of the top rated economic history journals of the time, the Economic History Review (UK) with a path-breaking critical article on a key debate of the decade, ‘Outcrop and deep level mining in South Africa before the Anglo-Boer War: re-examining the Blainey thesis’. This frequently cited article brought her scholarship to the attention of an overseas audience and fostered much interest in the complexities of the South African version of mining capitalism and the links between technology, geology and labour issues.

“As a friend Elaine possessed a number of outstanding qualities”, remembers Professor Bruce Murray, “She was genuinely concerned about one’s welfare and displayed an amazing empathy in responding to one’s trials and tribulations; she was most generous and the most hospitable of hosts, laying on regular luncheons for her friends”. For Professor Charles van Onselen, she was “a scholar ahead of her time”. He recalls, “If I was ever in doubt about some aspect of the history of the mining industry I would always check first with Elaine and she, in turn, was always extremely helpful and supportive of anything that I was working on. She was a tough critic and could be ruthless in her criticism of sloppy research but, in my case, she was always generous to a fault and I valued her insight and opinions alike.”

According to Professor Marcia Leveson, “Because Elaine was so self-effacing you would never guess how brilliant she was. She had a mind like a terrier, uniquely researching her chosen hidden areas of South African history, chasing details, unsparing in her academic rigor. Despite many obstacles, her indomitable drive kept her always working with an energy and ability that resulted in so many fine publications and appearances at local and overseas conferences. As a teacher, she was as demanding of her students as she was of herself. I knew her as colleague and had enormous respect for her both as an academic and as a person. I also cherished her as a loving friend – kind to a fault, caring, warm, funny, involved in many fields, and hugely supportive of her family and of her large network of friends who so appreciated her vital conversation and her open house”.

Sean Archer of UCT pays the following tribute: “Elaine was a meticulous historian who never accepted easy-going conjecture, nor did she shy away from correcting the politically correct views of the high and mighty in the South African history profession. I suspect she was a pains-taking teacher too.”

Says Clive Chipkin, “Thinking of Elaine, I recall a generous and caring friend, a brilliant mind, an active sportsperson, an all-rounder. To whatever she was reading, she applied the critical sense of a major historian’s mind that asked basic questions. She perceived life with a sense of fun and a hearty dislike of pomposity. And she was intrigued by the strange variegated geographically widespread family she came out of. She never stopped learning, entering into new fields, discussing architecture critically and passing on articles to me with a flourish of comments and questions”.

Elaine taught at Wits for many years and she was an excellent, demanding yet encouraging lecturer and teacher. She was versatile, serving successively as a lecturer and later senior lecturer in the Departments of History, Economic History and Communications Studies at Wits and, following her formal retirement, she held an honorary research fellowship in the Wits History Department from 1995 until her passing. This 22 year-research specialist association must surely rank among Wits records.

Elaine was a versatile teacher, across history, economic history, speech, drama and communications. She had an advantage possessed by few academics in that she had a Transvaal High School teaching diploma. Flo Bird, doyenne of Johannesburg heritage, recalls with fond affection that Elaine taught her history of Parktown Girls High and how her books have been of considerable assistance in stimulating her own knowledge and enriching the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation tours.

Elaine is additionally remembered for her work, together with Eric Axelson and Edward Tabler, on the publication Baines on the Zambezi, 1858-1859, a prestige collector’s limited edition published by the Brenthurst Press in 1982. This book was the eighth book in the first Brenthurst Africana series and remains one of the most sought after.

In 2008, Elaine contributed a major piece on Johannesburg to the New Encyclopaedia of Africa, published in the USA and edited by John Middleton. In her final years, her research took her into the subject of the role of American mining engineers and mining technology in the Witwatersrand gold mining industry; a recent talk on this subject at the Rand Club was received with accolades. Elaine also became interested in Jewish genealogy and in her own extensive family history, and applied her skills of careful scholarly research and data gathering to this new area of interest.

Elaine was a critic and referee of academic papers and publications of other scholars, and was generous in giving of her time in this regard. Her praise was hard earned, and her criticisms trenchant and always pointed to positive improvements so that scholarship was advanced.

Elaine left a legacy of a large and important archive of her lifetime of scholarship and research. It is an important source of work for mining, medical and labour history and the history of Johannesburg. We hope this will be received and preserved at Wits, thereby preserving her research sources and becoming open to other young scholars who follow in her footsteps. We would also like to establish a research fellowship in her name at Wits, and hereby invite contributions from her many friends, associates and colleagues who share a desire to commemorate her life and work.

Elaine Katz, nee Kuper, was born in March 1935. She was married to the late Victor Katz for over fifty years and is survived by their four children, Gail, Jeremy, Ruth and Peta Ann and a granddaughter, Abby Sarah.